


The Sweet Song: A Lyrium Ballad

by The_Hunter_Nightingale



Series: The Sweet Song [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, F/F, F/M, Graphic Violence, Inquisitor being a snekky Templar, Inquisitor hums Sp00py poems and it freaks people out, Inquisitor is a Templar, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal, M/M, Solas has no bearing in this story, Solas is an Egg, Spymaster Inquisitor, dark humour, i just thought i would say he's a damn egg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 17:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15913071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Hunter_Nightingale/pseuds/The_Hunter_Nightingale
Summary: "You hear the song, how sweet it sings, a lullaby for broken things..."In which Trevelyan is a disgraced Knight-Commander that only wants to live through the Lyrium withdrawal and somehow breath when all she's doing is drowning.





	The Sweet Song: A Lyrium Ballad

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose you could say this is my first work on this site, but not my first experience with writing in general; this shall be a first in a series, each story inside the series having exactly five chapters; seeing as it is a series, they will interconnect, but whether that is by release date or not remains to be seen. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for giving this a look, and I hope not to disappoint.

Elizabeth Trevelyan was never her father’s favourite; in fact, his least, but he would never say that even to a bastard child. Johnathan, the eldest and heir, was his favourite, and while he never specified his distaste for Elizabeth he made sure to let the entirety of the Free Marches know that _yes, this is my son John, eldest and heir to the family._ The fifty-something cousins she shared with her half-brother suddenly crawled out of the woodwork, from thrice-removed to first.

There was, however, a benefit of being the ‘bastard child’ of Ethan Trevelyan and some maid he had killed shortly after Elizabeth’s first week of breath; low, if any, expectations. Each Trevelyan child from his great-great grandfather down to the second youngest had heavy expectations – if you weren’t an heir you were a Chantry priest or a Lay Sister; and if you were neither of those you were a Circle groundskeeper, a Templar Knight, a Circle Knight-Enchanter (according to her father no Trevelyan of his blood was going to be a standard Circle Mage) or would serve in the Guardsman corps at Kirkwall.

Elizabeth, however, had no such pressure on her shoulders as her siblings did; the eldest expected to uphold everything his family name entailed, the second oldest expected to keep the Chantry and Templar Order within his interests by trading favours, the second youngest expected to become some Chantry Lay sister after taking an inordinate amount of vows, and Elizabeth herself to simply serve in the family’s best interests. Usually that meant attending balls and dancing with wealthy aristocrats, nobles and some form of royalty or another.

Aside from being youngest with little expectations, a bastard and the shame of House Trevelyan as a whole, Elizabeth was also just recently appointed Knight-Commander of the Ostwick branch of Templars – overseeing the reconstruction of the Circle after the Blight 10 years ago.

It’s a shame, really, that mages were oppressed in some places but as free as an eagle in others; the only thing each Circle had in common were Templars and strict ‘no demon summoning, no blood magic, no flinging fire balls at annoying Chantry nuns’ rules.

It was a shame; aside from those nuns being overprotective mother hens (At least they were at the Ostwick Circle) they were gossip geese that preferred idle chat to all else. Gossip was a currency she was familiar with; Knight Commander ‘Raven’ Trevelyan was a well-known Templar spymaster after all. All previous Knight-Commanders before her had been somewhat militaristic in their approach to mages and their own duties, so to many – mages especially – it came as a shock to see her sneaking around – if they even saw her in the first place – gathering secrets and spies.

When asked by those higher than her in the Chantry she responded with _“would you rather I run around accusing everyone of blood magic? Or would you rather I gather evidence first?”_

Many a cleric had silenced themselves of dissent a short while after.

Funnily enough, not a week later the Divine herself had asked for Elizabeth to accompany her to the Conclave; a neutral Templar standing with the Divine while Lord Seeker Lucius was slated to attend on behalf of the Templars and Grand Enchanter Fiona for the mages – this was, after all, _her_ rebellion. None had more cause to be there than she did.

Three days of travel, from the relatively warm Free Marches to the frigid landscape in which the Temple of Sacred Ashes rested. Three days of suffering the abrupt climate change, putting her Templar training to use in ways she never thought she would – endurance training set to keep her alive against demons was instead used to climb mountains, her sword often used to slay beasts instead used as an impromptu climbing pick. Her shield, often used in the past to ward away arrows, bolts of magic and the occasional claw of a demon was instead used to block the Divine from the snow falling around her. Her armour, scratched and worn with the many battles she’s fought, instead used to keep her warm when the fires died and all that remained was the torch used to keep the Divine heated.

When they finally _did_ reach the Conclave, the Left and Right Hands of the Divine came out to greet Her Holiness. Surprisingly the |Nightingale herself looked at her next – and instantly they both delved into conversation regarding the bets methods to extract information – Leliana herself taking a strange mixture of mental and physical, while Elizabeth adopted a more ‘watch and wait’ approach. Cassandra piped in once or twice, divulging in her abilities as a Seeker and how it’s allowed her to extract information she may have needed in the past.

When morbid conversation dimmed, The Left and Right took their leave, with orders from the Divine to remain at the Haven Chantry in case of dissent. With her job near complete, she accompanied the Divine into the chamber.

What did this have to do with her current situation? Nothing, but with her life flashing before her eyes – admittedly not much of a life – and the Lyrium in her veins singing a soft and gentle tune hallucinations before death were abound.

Hallucinations such as giant spiders chasing her up a grand staircase made of skulls, bones and ashes. Hallucinations were just in front of her stood the Divine herself, beckoning her to the exit of the ruined area. Hallucinations where said exit seemed to be little more that a green… _rift_ , for that was all she could describe it as.

Hallucinations so real that stepping foot through the rift dragged her from what she could only assume was the Fade to the crisp clean air of the mountains – at least this part wasn’t a hallucination, to her knowledge: Nothing could replace the scent of fire in the air, nothing could replicate the crisp and fresh wind that blew through her shoulder-length hair, nothing could duplicate the crunch of snow as her feet stumbled to keep her upright, the rift behind her closed and long gone.

Then, as her eyes finally closed when the Lyrium song had hit its decrescendo she collapsed onto the snow; her last thought of the snow being so cold and frigid on her pale skin that it couldn’t possibly be an illusion or a hallucination.

Her last thought being that everything she’d seen was _real_.


End file.
